This comment smells of ChatGPT.

If an AI suddenly eliminated the need to work? Tomorrow?

It would give me a moment to breathe. To think. To rest.

I would be a better son, and spend more time with and appreciating my aging parents.

I would be a better friend, more able to lend a hand whenever they need it, no matter if it's big or small.

I would be a better neighbour, and actually have the energy to pay attention to what's happening in my community.

I could finally concentrate on my personal pursuits guilt-free, realize meaningful life goals, be free to learn and explore a greater spectrum of the human experience, without the constant threat of destitution hanging over my head, without having to ask myself "can I make money doing this?"

I would read, I would create, I would share, I would help. But most of all, I would finally be able to breathe. And rest.

And you are presumptuous. I encourage you to not assume you know everyone's lived experiences.

/edit: I find it amusing that this user blocked immediately afterward. A quick look at their posting history shows how deliberately aggressive and immature they are.

This is succinct and correct. What's left is freedom.

Freedom from the profit motive controlling our lives.

Freedom to spend the one life we have on the pursuits and connections we actually care about, freedom to explore the full spectrum of human experience, instead of wasting it on human drudgery, fighting each other for just enough scraps to survive another day, just to do it again.

This technology offers us freedom.

I hear you bud. The profit motive separates us from who we want to be from who we have to be, simply for the privilege of existing. Really sucks the joy out of the human experience.

I believe I see the crux of our disagreement: you do not believe that human beings have inherent value. Would it be fair to say that if someone did not contribute to the collective - let's say, because they couldn't find gainful employment - then this person has no value?

If that is the case then I believe that we disagree fundamentally. It is my belief that all humans have intrinsic value, and it is up to us to build systems that allow all people to flourish no matter who they are or where they come from.

I do believe I am not understanding the argument you are making.

The original article discusses the problem AI poses in a capitalist system - namely, that if it gets good enough to eliminate jobs, people won't be able to make the money they need to survive.

My original comment was expanding on this point, that capitalism pushes us to view ourselves through our economic value first, instead of human beings with intrinsic value, and I argue that we should build systems - capitalistic or otherwise - that allow us to see ourselves as more than just economic inputs.

And so it is in this context why I am confused as to where your argument fits in? As I am re-reading your posts, I believe the point you are making is that an ever-increasing population creates the demand for people to sell their labour? And if we ever want to evolve beyond merely selling our labour to survive, we need to have less people, so there would be less market demand for production of goods and services? Something like this?

Don't be obtuse. It doesn't need to rest on the 'mystical nature of AI' - it's already happening now.

What happened to all the factory workers in the American midwest when all those manufacturing jobs got automated and outsourced away? We saw a massive increase in drug overdoses and suicides. What should've been the correct action to take here? How about professional drivers killing themselves because they can't compete with Uber?

It is a very hard sell to tell someone who has been working a profession for decades to just learn to write code, or to retrain yourself to some other thing in order to stay market competitive. Job retraining programs aren't a guarantee either. How would you like it if you were on the cusp of retiring, but because your job was outsourced or eliminated by market forces, everyone just told you, suck it up buttercup, go learn how to do something else?

There are myriad examples like this that have happened and continue to happen without the need for an all-powerful AGI. All you need is market forces that seek to maximize profit and minimize cost. My stance is that the free market is a dehumanizing machine that always demands more, more, and more in order for the privilege of just existing.

Yeah, and we also could've started addressing climate change decades earlier. Sometimes it feels like the profit motive poisons us both metaphorically and literally.

> Then why doesn't it? How did you get into that sort of situation?

Journalism. Teaching. Parenting.

>That would be unfortunate but I don't see how it creates any obligation on the part of anyone else, much less AI companies specifically, to pay taxes just to increase your work options. There's a big missing gap in reasoning there.

Gallup has shown over the past two decades that about two thirds of people either felt not engaged or were actively disengaged (i.e. hating) their job. How much stress, mental illness, and wasted human potential is that?

>(or if I do, it'll probably be a very uncharitable guess).

>...

>Very much. However, 'our current stupid system' and 'the stupid system suggested by the OP's article' do not constitute an exhaustive list of options.

Instead of being snide, why don't you just say what you think?

You seem to be very eager to blame the individual instead of examining the problems inherent in our current economic system.

Sorry, I don't follow your logic. All I am saying, in the context of commenting on OP's article, is that a broader potential for human wellbeing exists outside of the bounds that free-market capitalism has set for us.

A concrete example: being forced to learn skills for a type of labour that you don't care about simply to trade for the resources to survive.

What I am saying, is that since this paradigm has been in place for so long, that creates an attitude that this is how it will always be. In the context of the article, AI is only an issue because it is perceived as taking away peoples' way of securing those resources necessary for survival. My argument is that if we had systems that didn't make your ability to survive conditional on the labour you are able to sell - i.e. implementing a universal basic income - then greater overall human wellbeing can be achieved. I hope this clarifies my stance for you.

Alright. And from your other post about your current priorities I can see why work has such an important place in your life.

However, you need to understand that this isn't the situation for everyone - that is, many people find their social connections, life structure, and sense of fulfillment outside of what they do for a living. In fact, Gallup has shown over the past two decades that about two thirds of people either felt not engaged or were actively disengaged (i.e. hating) their job. (There is more recent polling data but this is the first graphic I found, which only goes from 2000-2016, but I recall the numbers have remained steady since then)

This is understandable if we concede that most people most of the time only work because they are compelled to, or else they will starve.

I think what OPs article was arguing, and what many other people on this sub would argue, is that this free-market capitalistic system itself is problematic in the face of ever-changing technology that risks squeezing out the human component of labour. The ultimate concern being, how would we survive within this system if we have no labour to sell?

I suppose what I don't understand, is why you conceptualize someone's value as strictly what good or service they can provide someone else?

I mean, the general tone of this forum is an optimism about the future and how technology could improve all our lives. Given your personal situation I can understand why this may seem like a mirage, given that you are more concerned with your immediate survival needs. I hope you are able to improve your situation.

That assumes that there will always be 'something else' to do. It also assumes that we should always 'do something else'.

A union also doesn't stop market forces from operating. If there is robotics or software that can do the same amount of work faster / better / cheaper, you will be incentivized to use it - because if you don't, someone else will, and you jeopardize your position in the market. I'd take a Presto card over a warm body sitting at the gate collecting tokens any day, and so would the market.

From the flavour of your other posts, it sounds like you feel work by itself has purpose. Tell me why?

I'm speaking in hypotheticals here, but if your survival needs were met, would you still work?

Friend, you need to calm down. From the tone of your other posts, you sound very angry at something but I have no idea what.

The point I was trying to get across, is that everyone in Starfleet wants to be there, even if there's no monetary reward. In this fictional future, the real prize is social prestige. And that changes everything.

The equivalent would be if someone was developing the next AI system, or the next iPhone, not out of the hope to reap massive profits, but because they felt it was something that could advance the species.

There's a shift from the very narrow goal of profit to the much more grand ideals of improving us as a civilization. That's the difference.

> Forgive me if I don’t cry them a river. I’ve had to hustle my whole life and provide value where I’m able and I still struggle.

What I'm hearing is "I had to suffer, so you must suffer." This is not how we make progress as a society.

What if that was you? What if you worked your whole life, did everything you were supposed to, invested as wisely as you could, and decided to retire sometime between 2019-2022? Well, we know how difficult it would be, because we're living through it right now.

This argument that technology will always create new jobs is limiting and limited. Limiting because it conceptualizes human beings as workers only. Limited because it assumes that the new situation will always be better.

Humans are not infinitely flexible widgets, and nor should they be. I wonder when you are 50 years old, and your job becomes outsourced / automated / made obsolete by technology, will you also be so eager and ready to retrain to the next viable industry? And keep in mind, new jobs that are created through technological advancements tend to require more skills and education, not less, and there's no guarantee that there will be more jobs created, or even a 1:1 replacement. Or maybe you feel it is viable that everybody learn to write code, or everyone should go to trade school, regardless of ability or interest?

Your analogy isn't exactly applicable - in Star Trek they developed replicator technology which basically meant abundance for all. People totally could hangout on the holodeck all day. It's just that now they have created an environment where everyone who does work wants to be there, there is no need to work. At least, from what we see from the Starfleet point of view. Maybe we just don't see all the people on earth who spend their time in holonovels.

"You are all so entitled / but maybe you know something I don't"

Friend, what was the purpose of this post?

I hear ya bud. I always feel like it's such a lack of imagination, and loss of potential, how we have the tools right now (such as implementing a UBI) that could be a stepping stone towards creating a culture where we don't reduce our lives' meaning down to 'worker'.

> That doesn't make any sense. A person living all alone in an otherwise uninhabited universe would be required to either work or suffer. Blaming a natural circumstance like that on capitalism seems like a bizarre mistake. (And not the only thing I've seen arbitrarily blamed on capitalism in recent years; what's up with that?)

What happens if the type of labour you have to sell does not pay you enough to survive, or does not pay you at all, but is still vitally important, e.g. parenting and most forms of non-profit work?

Or if, because the market does not reward all forms of labour equally, the labour that you are most adapt at / talented at / interested in pursuing, are economically unviable, and so you are forced to follow a spiritually unrewarding path, e.g. forgoing most forms of art and passion work?

Or what happens when technology has advanced to the point where you don't need everyone to work in order to provide the means of survival?

If in my city there simultaneously exist hundreds of vacant properties for lease and who knows how many homeless people who will die this winter due to exposure, don't you feel there is something flawed about this system?

In our current system, you sell your labour to secure the resources you need to survive. If you don't, you are free to starve. It's that simple.

Society is all about improving our collective well-being and taking care of the survival-level stuff so we can focus more and more on things we actually care about. At a certain point, our technology and culture will advance to the point where we should be able to see ourselves as something more than mere economic inputs.

If doctors only worked half as much as they do now, would it be an issue if we then had twice as many doctors? The necessary amount of doctoring in society can be done, while freeing up time for doctors to spend on their non-doctorly hobbies. Could this be a win-win for getting things we need to get done, while also giving each person more time to live a more holistic life?

What do you mean?

This is the result of us existing in a market-based social order - it creates this culture where the pursuits that give our lives meaning become so intertwined with the pursuits that secure us the resources for survival, that these two are often considered to be one and the same. And I think this is the case whether we're discussing artists or electricians or doctors or whomever.

We need a culture shift in the way we understand the relationship between work and value and what to do with the one life we have on this earth. If we cannot clearly separate monetary pursuits and meaningful pursuits in our minds, we'll be condemned to always view ourselves in terms of monetary value, even though something deep within us says we have inherent value as humans. It stops us from making progress as a global civilization, and traps us in the mindset of "that's how it's always been".

I imagine part of the reason is that there has not yet been widespread catastrophic workforce disruption due to adoption of AI and related technologies, and part of it is that the advancements we were hoping for seem to be taking longer than we expected, e.g. self-driving vehicles. And so there is a perception that these technologies are still way off, or that they will affect only a few narrow industries, or it's all happening in the background and isn't flashy, therefor it's nothing to worry about.

Kinda like climate change - maybe we can understand CO2 emissions and ocean currents and so on in the abstract, but hey, it's still snowing where I live, and I got bills to pay, so whatever, nothing to worry about, the penguins can wait. And then all of a sudden each passing year becomes the hottest year on record for some reason.

I imagine it's quite like that - it would require some widespread workforce disruption where many, many people across various domains of labour lose their livelihoods and not be able to retrain before the mainstream realizes we need to work on solutions, but by then the damage will have already been done.

For example in my country Canada, one of the biggest grocery corporations Loblaws announced they'll be testing these autonomous trucks earlier this month, and it doesn't seem to be talked about much in our media.